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On Wednesday, August 5, from 04:00 - 15:00, MSI staff will perform scheduled maintenance and upgrades to the network and various systems.

During this maintenance period, MSI will be performing the following updates:

• Mesabi will be unavailable for Infiniband testing and hardware maintenance.• Nice3D systems will be unavailable for network modifications.• Lab systems, Nice, login nodes and Galaxy will be offline for network maintenance and OS updates.• NX will be unavailable to deploy a new version of the server software.• Brief network maintenance for firmware updates.• Citrix/Xen will be offline for system updates.

MSI PIs George Weiblen and M. David Marks, both professors in the Department of Plant Biology, have published research that identifies a gene that distinguishes hemp from marijuana. This research could have implications for future industrial uses of hemp. Currently, legal restrictions affect both the growing of hemp and marijuana. Identifying how the two Cannabis varieties differ could result in fewer restrictions for hemp, which has valuable fibers and nutritious seeds.

Professor Weiblen is also curator of plants at the Bell Museum of Natural History. He uses MSI resources for genetic linkage mapping and quantitative trait locus mapping for cannabinoid content as well as phylogenetic analysis of cannabinoid synthase sequences and gene expression patterns. Professor Marks uses MSI for plant genome assembly and annotation.

MSI Principal Investigator Art Erdman (Director, Medical Devices Center; Mechanical Engineering) was quoted in a recent article about how a Western bias in the development of medical devices can affect their usability in other cultures. This challenge is especially great when developing devices for home use. Professor Erdman discusses the need for on-site study of the needs of other countries and cultures.

Two MSI Principal Investigators are featured in a recent post on the University’s Discover blog about deep brain stimulation (DBS), a therapy to alleviate tremors associated with Parkinson’s disease and other disorders. DBS uses electrodes inserted into a patient’s brain to electrically stimulate brain circuits, which causes the tremors to be greatly reduced or disappear completely. This is an enormous quality-of-life benefit to patients who sometimes are unable to perform the basic tasks because of their tremors.

Associate Professor Noam Harel (Center for Magnetic Resonance Research) and Assistant Professor Matt Johnson (Biomedical Engineering) are both involved in research to improve DBS therapy. Professor Harel uses imaging software available through MSI to construct 3D maps of a patient’s brain, allowing exact placement of the electrodes. Professor Johnson is using the supercomputers and visualization software in his group’s to create computational models of brain stimulation, which allow them to develop better devices for DBS.